


Emb(race)

by MrMich



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Candlenights, F/F, Post-Canon, Queer Candlenights Secret Santa, Racing, sometimes your best competition is also the person you're married to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:07:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21968314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrMich/pseuds/MrMich
Summary: Hurley leans against Sloane, the way they always do on Candlenights. On every night, really, even after becoming dryads. The only difference is that before, they’d be leaning against each other on Sloane’s soft overstuffed couch – it’s the type that feels like it’s going to swallow you whole, but in a comforting kind of way. Now, instead of Sloane’s couch, they just lean against their tree, their new home.It’s almost more comfortable this way, though Hurley finds herself missing the old overstuffed thing anyway.But sitting there, wrapped in Sloane’s arms in the crisp winter air with the barest light from the sunset glowing over the normally stark and angled planes of Sloane’s cheekbones and the whorls and knots of their tree, Hurley finds she also doesn’t mind too much. Things are different now, but things always change, somewhere down the line.
Relationships: Hurley/Sloane (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Emb(race)

Hurley leans against Sloane, the way they always do on Candlenights. On every night, really, even after becoming dryads. The only difference is that before, they’d be leaning against each other on Sloane’s soft overstuffed couch – it’s the type that feels like it’s going to swallow you whole, but in a comforting kind of way. Now, instead of Sloane’s couch, they just lean against their tree, their new home. 

It’s almost more comfortable this way, though Hurley finds herself missing the old overstuffed thing anyway. 

But sitting there, wrapped in Sloane’s arms in the crisp winter air with the barest light from the sunset glowing over the normally stark and angled planes of Sloane’s cheekbones and the whorls and knots of their tree, Hurley finds she also doesn’t mind too much. Things are different now, but things always change, somewhere down the line. 

She tilts her head back, leaning up towards her wife as Sloane leans down and they kiss softly, celebrating the holidays together in the same way they always have. With a good dinner (they asked Taako to cook something for them this year, something they could pick up from him quickly, because they knew he was also busy making dinner for his own celebrations. It didn’t mean that they weren’t going to take advantage of being friends with  _ the _ Taako, best damn chef of every planar system imaginable) and the company of each other, stretched out contentedly. 

Sloane shifts under Hurley. Hurley looks back up at her, sees the challenge dancing in her eyes, and reflects the grin she sees spreading across Sloane’s face. 

Disentangling themselves, the two of them stand up. Hurley brushes herself off, seemingly calm, even as she feels a trill of anticipation zip through her bones.

Sloane meets her gaze evenly and says, “You ready to eat dust?” with a sly, fond smile. 

Hurley punches one hand into the other, letting loose a wild grin. “You should be asking yourself that question.”

And then, with hardly any warning at all, the two shoot off into the dim light of the sunset, feet pounding against the ground and raising up little puffs of dust as they race to their respective battlewagons. 

Sloane reaches hers first and flashes a cocky grin in Hurley’s direction, only to have it wiped off her face as Hurley launches her small body through the window of her battlewagon, bypassing the doors entirely. 

Hurley smirks as she revs her engine mockingly. She can faintly hear Sloane hissing curses as she gets into her own wagon. 

Racing is the one thing that always brings out both the best and the worst of them, but it’s such a staple of who they are, and more than that – who they are  _ together _ , that this is one tradition they could never give up. Would never want to give up. 

Shifting her battlewagon into drive, Hurley races towards the starting line of the Goldcliff track, which has now been made an official racing track. Sloane skids off after her, the newly incorporated lights on the Goldcliff track glinting off the sleek bodies of their battlewagons as they come upon it… and then race past it, shooting off into the now almost entirely faded glow of the sunset.

The two wagons blaze off into the dark, etching their own track into the sand and dirt. 

It was the same as how it was before everything changed, when Hurley and Sloane had masks of ram and raven coating their skin instead of bark. Before battlewagon racing became a sanctioned sport.

Back to the beginning. When Hurley and Sloane were newly Hurley&Sloane, inseparable; though in a different way than they are now.

The two line up, side by side on their chosen track. They flash the lanterns mounted to the front of their battlewagons once, twice, three times.

And then they are off.

Their battlewagons scream into the night as they race, Sloane pulling ahead first, then Hurley slipping into place alongside her before overtaking her for just a moment. They race against each other and against the cliff’s edge, perilously close to the chasm as they fight for victory, arcane core engines roaring as both Hurley and Sloane slam on the gas.   
  
Sloane laughs, wild and sharp. The sound is caught by the wind and the engine, and it gets whipped away before Hurley can hear it, though she knows what it sounds like from the way Sloane’s head is thrown back, mouth open and teeth glinting in the low light. 

It’s okay that she can’t truly hear it; she’s heard that laugh every day of her life since they first met, and she’ll hear it every day for the rest of it, too. 

Even though she knows Sloane won’t hear her past the noise of the wind whipping past them, she calls out anyway, “Don’t think I’ll go easy on you just because I love you!”

And, with the adrenaline coursing through her body, she slams the button on the dashboard down, the one that sends the arcane core engine into overdrive and gives her that extra burst of nitro, to be used at just the right moment. Her battlewagon shoots forward, blue flame trailing behind her as the arcane engine releases a burst of energy that sends her rocketing past Sloane. 

But not for long; Sloane pushes her own battlewagon harder, and soon she’s trailing only just behind Hurley. 

The race is almost over; the impromptu track they chose ending in a steep cliff a mere hundred feet away, the gaping chasm looming up before them.

The wheels of both battlewagons spin furiously. Hurley and Sloane kick up clouds of dust as they vie furiously against each other, pushing closer and closer towards the edge. Hurley laughs once, a loud bark of laughter as the excitement of the race bubbles up in her and spills over. 

Both of them turn at the last second, Sloane crowing as she pulls a fraction of a second ahead.

Just as Sloane is certain of her victory, one of her front wheels skids over a pothole worn into the ground by wind and rain, sending her battlewagon spinning slightly to the left. It is just enough for Hurley to maneuver her way past Sloane and across the finish line first. 

Hurley slams on her brakes, battlewagon tearing into the ground, leaving streaks in the dust behind her as she bring her battlewagon to a stop. She smiles cheerfully at Sloane. 

“Last one to the finish is a rotten egg. The laws of old demand you spit it out, Sloane!” Hurley says with a wink, beaming at her wife and still riding the high of the race, not above a little teasing.

And in a time honored tradition, as she gets out of her battlewagon, Sloane rolls her eyes good naturedly. With a smile tugging at the corners of her lips, she dryly recites, “Hurley is the best battlewagon racer to ever exist. She is even more talented than I, Sloane, and will triumph over me, lowly loser that I am.”

The words are the ones that they came up with when they first started racing against each other – first as rivals, shifting gradually to friends, then later as girlfriends, and now, forever, as wives. It began at the race that started all this between them, a private rematch after an unsatisfactory end to one of the Goldcliff competitions. Coming off a soured victory only won due to pre race sabotage by another racer, they had to prove who was really better between the two of them. Their competitive streaks had reared up, and it was inconceivable to both Sloane and Hurley that there should be no punishment for the loser of their race. And then it became an annual thing, a Candlenights tradition to close the year out with a race, and what was a race with no punishment?

“Those are the words I like to hear,” Hurley teases.

So far, the amount of times they’d lost was about even, and they traded victory back and forth almost every year. 

Sloane just grins. “Anything for you, Hurley. Though I’ve got an inkling that I’ll be hearing those sweet, sweet words coming from you next year’s race.”

“I wouldn’t count on it, dear.” Hurley slides out of her own battlewagon, windblown and laughing. She crosses the distance between her and Sloane in the space of a heartbeat, and reaches out to take her wife’s hand in her own. 

“Happy Candlenights, Sloane.”

Sloane leans down towards Hurley and drops a kiss against her lips. 

“Happy Candlenights, Hurley.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Happy Candlenights, all!
> 
> This was written for [echoequinox](https://echoequinox.tumblr.com) over on Tumblr!


End file.
